My wife recently had sinus surgery and we've been hitting the trails almost daily for the past couple of weeks. Tomorrow is her first day back, so we'll be back to our regular offroad schedule of Tuesdays and Wednesdays if anyone else cares to explore.

Here's where we started our day:
35°46'56.76"N 115°19'59.35"W

From there, we headed several hours south exploring the east side of that mountain range. We found ourselves deep into the mountains well into California. I keep showing pictures of mines, but they all start to look alike, so I'll limit that. Here is one of the interesting structures we found today. We often see the remnants of the aerial tramways, but this is the first time we've seen one with the tramway cable still attached.

Here is where the day started to get weird. We started to see Christmas ornaments hanging in the most random places. In the washes that ran deep alongside the trail, they were full of garbage. Lots of water bottles and signs of constant foot traffic.

From the altitude of the mountain trail, we kept seeing what we thought was people in the distance carrying backpacks. We didn't have binoculars and every time we zoomed the camera in, we lost target. The wash we kept seeing the people in was deep. When we did see someone, we just saw them from their necks up.

Last picture for now. The trail in this area was very over grown, but we kept going until we couldn't. We figured we were far enough from where we saw those people and headed down the trail on foot.

We barely got away from the Jeep when we saw something shine on a ridge in front of us. We could see the outline of a person trying not to be seen. We wanted to get the hell out of the area and headed back to the Jeep.

When we're offroad, I've been keeping the volume on the CB up and scanning active channels, but the squelch high so only the closest and strongest transmissions will be received. As soon as we started up, the CB scanned and locked on an active channel. We heard voices talking in Spanish. With the squelch up that high, they had to be close. Since we were miles away from any paved roads, it was probably the people we've been seeing.

That was a very uncomfortable feeling. I really need to get a good rifle. If that reflection I saw was a scope, I was extremely outgunned. We won't be going back there.

We were still very far from the Mexican border. If they were packing in drugs, would they still pack them in this far north? I thought if they got them in this far, they would feel safe enough to drive them the rest of the way.

Yeah, that's the spot where we saw the guy looking down at us. I agree, it's inconvenient, but if it were a smuggling route, I think that type of inconvenience is what they'd want.

After I had a night to sleep on it, I think I may have just read more into the situation. What we thought we saw in the wash as backpackers may have been just backpackers.

The guy up on the ridge may have been unrelated to the backpackers. The reflection could have been his watch.

The washes in that area are heavy with foot traffic though. Lots of food wrappers and drink bottles. The area is, at the least, a well used path. All of it could be unrelated, but out there exposed we felt a little vulnerable.

The strangest thing we came across offroad was a naked BBQ off Rocky Gap Rd. We wanted to see where that creek started, so we started climbing and came across a few naked people cooking over a portable grill. They weren't at all sexy. Imagine any random school lunch lady. Now, imagine her naked.

At first, we just thought the ornaments were just random from possibly a camping party. Then we started seeing them more and they were always along the washes. These were deep washes and they were used often. The rest of the area looked just like you would expect somewhere remote. Very clean and natural. It was only until you were looking down into them that we saw all the garbage.

I remember when I was about 11 or 12, we visited a family friend who lived in Arizona. He was probably a good 20 miles from the border and his property was used as a foot trail. There was garbage all over his property too.

The whole thing just seemed suspicious to us. It's close to the interstate and well north of the US border. If it was a drug trail, it would seem easier to just pack them in a car and drive. Packing them in a car would actually seem less suspicious than seeing them out in the mountains.

The guy talking in Spanish on the CD sounded very excited about something and the CB was quiet just before that.

I'm still hoping it was nothing and that maybe I just read too much into it.

Wow i too sometimes go deep in the desert exploring and usually when i do i bring my AR and pistol with me.I figure i rather be safe than sorry when you are literally out in the middle of nowhere.

The only time i ever had a weird encounter was in Sandy valley when i was out shooting.I spotted this dark green
Dodge pickup just parked watching me.I grabbed my bino to look and he must be doing the same thing and he turned around.Turns out this guy likes to drive around areas where people shoot and collects brass for reloads.

I guess nowadays you just got to be careful..there seems to be alot of marijuana fields thats being discovered around the city like in Mt Charleston and Lovell canyon.